Transatlantic liner

“ There was always regular traffic between America and Europe, especially with Great Britain, and the rapid growth of emigration to the United States and Canada made it profitable, early in this century, to put on fast-sailing packet-ships, making voyages, at intervals of a month, between London and New York. By 1840 a man might find a large, well-ordered ship departing every week or so for the transatlantic passage, which usually required less than a month going east, but might be two weeks longer coming west. ”

“ The steamer is one of the links to unite the nations, and the familiar intercourse that it creates is a sure promotor of universal peace.
Of transatlantic lines there are many; it is impossible to give the exact number for the reason that new ones may be created or old ones suspended during the time this volume is passing through the press. On the American coast the ports of Montreal, Quebec, Halifax, Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans are served by transatlantic steam lines ”

“ For upwards of nine years Great Britain had held a monopoly of the transatlantic steamship business. America could and did build sailing vessels that were unsurpassed by those belonging to any other nation; her Baltimore clippers, Boston packets, and New York liners were all of them vessels of the highest class and reputation. But apparently Americans could neither build, nor own ocean steamers that were capable of successfully competing with British owned steamships. ”

“ The day a ship returns safely has always been important to seafaring men. It’s especially important if she has made a new record of some kind. All the seamen in New York harbor were excited when the passenger liner United States came in after crossing the Atlantic faster than any other liner had ever done. ”

“ But, sooner or later, a London-New York [Pg 109] service of aircraft must be established. Its advantages are too tremendous to be ignored for long. Prediction is ever dangerous; and, meantime, I am confining myself to a discussion of what can be done with the means and the knowledge already at the disposal of experts, provided their brains are allied to sufficient capital.
Notwithstanding that the first two flights across the Atlantic were made respectively by a flying-boat and an aëroplane, it is very evident that the future of transatlantic flight belongs to the airship. ”

“ And they were run very close by the American liners, Paris and New York. These four vessels were among the first propelled by twin-screws. Engineers began to see that it was better to use great power in two shafts and two propellers than in one.
In July, 1892, the fine Inman (now called American) liner Paris crossed the Atlantic in 5 days, 15 hours, and 58 minutes, and in October of the same year the same vessel steamed from Liverpool, touching as usual at Queenstown, in 6 days, 2 hours, and 24 minutes—including the time at the Irish port. ”

“ The traveller to-day demands more than comfort and safety. Travelling is in the main itself a luxury, and as more and more Americans have found themselves with sufficient means to indulge in it, they have demanded more and more luxurious surroundings and appointments. It is in response to this demand and the growth of the traffic, that within the last few years there has been placed upon the transatlantic lines a fleet of steamships that surpass in every respect anything that the world has seen. ”

“ No one knows to what industry the United States may next apply the methods by which the country has created the age of steel.
Coal and the steam engine may both, within a few years, be displaced as factors in marine transportation. Sweeping tariff changes in the United States, in Great Britain and in Germany may vitally affect the movement of freights. Transatlantic passenger traffic, not only a huge business in itself, but also important, so long as it is sea-borne, in its effects upon transatlantic freights, may become aerial instead of marine. ”

“ Even with the present practicability of the aeroplane, equipped with every known invention and device for expediting and safeguarding flights, a Transatlantic air voyage is something not to be regarded lightly, nor indeed to be undertaken at all, except by the hardiest and most courageous of men, endowed with a supreme fatalism and an all-enduring self-confidence. ”

“ Gradually the other branches of the business began to increase their activity, and the service to North America especially received the close attention of the company’s management. Meanwhile, other shipping companies had added some vessels of the very highest class to their fleets. The two big turbine steamers of the Cunard Line, the Lusitania and the Mauretania, had attracted many passengers, and the White Star Line had the mammoth liner Olympic building, which was to be followed by two others of the same type, the Titanic and the Gigantic. ”

“ Though the Philadelphia line of steamers has much to contend against, owing to duties imposed by the American Government on all articles required for their construction and outfit, and may, consequently, find it difficult to rival successfully the steam-ships of Europe engaged in the Transatlantic trade, they are supported, if not owned, by one of the largest railway undertakings in the United States of America. ”

“ A modern Atlantic liner, practically a luxuriously-fitted, electric-lighted floating hotel, built of rolled steel plates, would obviously not fall within the work of a shipwright like Peter the Great. ”

“ The ships of three million, five hundred thousand cubic feet capacity, which can be housed and flown for commercial purposes as soon as the required terminals and navigational facilities are ready, will approximate to those described as being suitable for a transatlantic service. ”

“ The third was the Covington, formerly the German liner Cincinnati, which was torpedoed in the early summer of this year while on her way to an American port.
Life on merchantmen, freighters, liners, and the like, crossing the Atlantic, has been fraught with peril and with excitement ever since we went into the war. Even with armed guards there are of course all sorts of chances of disaster, chances frequently realized ”

“ America has supported the transatlantic lines, but almost every civilized people with a seacoast has outdone us in building the ships. For a time, indeed, it seemed that we should speedily overcome the lead that England immediately took in building steamships. Her entrance upon this industry was, as we have seen, in 1838. The United States took it up about ten years later. In 1847 the Ocean Steam Navigation Company was organized in this country and secured from the Government a contract to carry the mails between New York and Bremen. ”

“ Undoubtedly in a few years the United States will be covered with a network of passenger, mail and express lines.
Trans-Atlantic service is still in the future. Extensive research and careful study will be required before any regular schedule between America and Europe can be maintained. Multi-motored flying boats with stations along the route will eventually make trans-oceanic airlines [197] practical but their development must be based on a solid foundation of experience and equipment. ”

“ To be sure there is the hope to be indulged that we may fall in with a passing vessel, but as the part of the Atlantic into which we have been driven is intermediate between the tracks of the French and English Transatlantic steamers either from the Antilles or the Brazils, we cannot reckon at all upon such a contingency happening in our favour ”

“ Great Britain and the United States were primarily interested in this trade, but the other nations of northern Europe also had a part to play, and even Austria-Hungary and Italy entered the competition. But the United States gradually grew to depend more and more on the ships of other nations until finally the American Line with its handful of ships was almost the only serious American contender for the profits of the rapidly growing passenger business that had developed. ”

“ From that glorious day before Boston when the hearts of the Continentals were fired by the long wagon-train, loaded with war material, captured by an American cruiser from the enemy, until the last service of the Alliance in bringing specie from Havana, there was never a time when the sea power did not render helpful and glorious service to the struggling patriots ashore. ”

“ But there were other differences, besides those of their condition and geographical distribution on the ship, that divided its inhabitants. For the first-class passengers the world was a very small place, about which many of them were accustomed to hurry in an important way in the process of spending and getting their money, taking an Atlantic liner as humbler people take a tramcar, without giving much thought to it or laying elaborate plans, running backwards and forwards across the Atlantic and its dangers [77] as children run across the road in front of a motor car. ”

“ For a flight of twenty-five hundred miles all the disposable lift (gross lift minus weight of structure) would be needed for crew and fuel, and neither passengers nor freight could be taken aboard.
There is not in existence an aëroplane capable of flying, without alighting on the way, the three thousand miles between London and New York, even when loaded only with the necessary crew. With the very smallest margin of safety no transatlantic route of over two thousand miles is admissible for aëroplanes. ”

“ An ocean-liner is built, manned, and coaled to fight tempestuous seas, and safely make the voyage; but unless the ship is built sufficiently staunch, has sufficiently powerful engines, [155] is well manned, and has coal enough for the trip, it is in no sense a success, or useful ”

“ A great many fine, swift, commodious lines of steamships run between the South American ports and Europe and very few and comparatively poor ships run between those ports and the ports of the United States. No American line runs south of the Caribbean Sea. Our mails are slow and uncertain. It is a matter of hardship for a passenger to go directly between the great South American ports and the great North American ports, while the mails run swiftly and certainly to and from Europe, and it is a pleasure for a passenger to go between one of those ports and the European ports. ”

“ No question could be raised of its (p. 196) behavior in sinking four of the five ships, namely, the Strathdene (British freighter) , bound from New York to Bordeaux; the West Point (British freighter) , bound from London to Newport News; the Bloomersdijk (Dutch freighter) , bound from New York to Rotterdam; and the Christian Knudsen (Norwegian freighter) , bound from New York to London. The danger, happily averted, to American-German relations lay in the sinking of the fifth vessel, the Stephano, a British passenger liner plying regularly between New York, Halifax, N. S., and St. ”

“ In 1900 over $118,000,000 was invested in trans-atlantic steamship lines, which are largely owned by foreigners. New lines to the Mediterranean have been put on with distinct purpose to swell the Italian and Slav immigration. Rate cutting has at times made it possible for the steerage passenger to go from Liverpool to New York for as low as $8.75. The average rate is not high enough to deter anyone who really wants to come. ”

“ Our transport service is adequate for our present needs, but in the event of a new war, which might require us to send an enlarged army over seas, we are practically no better prepared than in 1898; for there are no more ships in the merchant marine carrying the United States flag which could be drafted into service than were in commission then. There are practically no American ships in trans-oceanic service outside those of the government. ”

“ But, though the Americans have surpassed all other nations in the steamers hitherto produced for their lake and river navigation, they have not as yet sent forth any steam-ships so well adapted for ocean navigation as those of Great Britain; indeed, almost every attempt made by them to compete successfully [Pg 151] with British vessels so engaged has been a commercial failure. In their distant coasting lines (what a misnomer to describe the voyage between New York and San Francisco as “coasting trade”!) they have, however, for many years employed some of the finest steam-ships afloat. ”

“ All winter long the wheels of the machinery had kept in motion. The cable was uncoiling its mighty folds to a length sufficient to span the Atlantic, and at last there was hope of victory.
Although the United States Government had seemed a little ungracious in its delay, it yet rendered, this year and the next, most important service. Already it had prepared the way, by the deep-sea soundings, which it was the first to take across the Atlantic. It now rendered additional and substantial aid in lending to this enterprise the two finest ships in the American navy—the Niagara and the Susquehanna. ”

“ The 21st century will hold new challenges for our maritime industry, including an anticipated doubling of cargo and passenger traffic in the next two decades. If we are to meet those challenges, we must maintain a robust U.S.-flag fleet, crewed by American mariners. ”

“ It is in the nature of a paradox that the brilliant success of the packet ships in dominating the North Atlantic trade should have been a factor in the decline of the nation's maritime prestige and resources. Through a period of forty years the pride and confidence in these ships, their builders, and the men who sailed them, was intense and universal. They were a superlative product of the American genius, which still displayed the energies of a maritime race. On other oceans the situation was no less gratifying. American ships were the best and cheapest in the world. ”